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━ DECEMBER , 2022 ━
ISABELLE
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"DO YOU THINK I should tell my parents? They're coming over to meet me this weekend" I ask Katherine, as I release the one minute plank I had been holding. Lately, yoga and the occasional Pilates were the only things besides caffeine that were helping me keep my head in place. Katherine shuts her copy of Understanding Molecular Biology close and takes the last long sip from her red and white coffee mug.
"That depends. Which part do you wanna tell them? The kiss or ─"
"His entire existence" I interrupt her mid-sentence, sitting cross legged on the yoga mat and sweating like a pig. Kat hesitates for a second or two, pouting like she always does when her head is full of thoughts.
"They won't be particularly thrilled about it, but yeah, you could try" She shrugs and I let out a sigh.
"No I mean I'd obviously leave out the kiss" I explain, heading towards the shower. Next thing on my to-do list was to edit the rough article I had written at three am last night and as much as I was dreading the task, I knew I had to turn it in by 3pm ─ I couldn't risk losing GRL, especially when Jeremiah had trusted me enough to give me a position as important as Managing Editor. In fact, he was one of those few people I knew who believed strongly in my organization capabilities. I couldn't let him down, even though I was struggling in the process.
"Of course you would" Katherine pauses to look at me, "But do they know about what happened back when you were in highschool?"
"Jesus, Kat, I had a full fledged mental breakdown over it. Duh" I shake my head, stepping inside the shower and latching the door. I could still hear her voice faintly, but couldn't make out her words as the warm water from the shower overhead hinders my hearing abilities for a while.
Two years ago, when I had a real panic attack for the first time in my life ─ my parents were the only people who were there to pull me into their arms without blaming me for breaking my own heart. I had expected them to be mad at me, which they were ─ of course ─ but I couldn't describe how lucky I'd felt to have them support me, pre and post my panic episodes. Naturally, when they called me last night to say they were visiting Connecticut since I couldn't make it during Thanksgiving ─ the only thing that came to my mind was how I was going to face them ─ knowing in the back of my head that I was going down the same spiral again, now having inadvertently kissed the same guy in a moment when I was emotionally vulnerable.
Nevertheless, I hoped they would understand, that is, if I decided to tell them at all. I was immesely impulsive and I knew it was one of the many things that I needed to work on. But for the time being, I had to rely on Kat for advice because she usually gave the best ones in situations like these. I still didn't know if it would be wise to tell my parents about Sky because one, they'd expect me to have made grown up choices and two, anything between me and Sky is a bad idea ─ it always will be, but they deserved to know and I didn't want them to find out the way they did in the past.
